Weekly Stats Report: 10 Dec – 16 Dec 2012
Project: Scary Motherfucker
URL: http://scarymotherfucker.wordpress.com/
Summary
| Mon | Tues | Wed | Thur | Fri | Sat | Sun | Total | Avg | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pageloads | 110 | 141 | 118 | 151 | 105 | 89 | 112 | 826 | 118 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Unique Visits | 80 | 99 | 85 | 118 | 76 | 59 | 85 | 602 | 86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First Time Visits | 78 | 97 | 83 | 117 | 74 | 57 | 84 | 590 | 84 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Returning Visits | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 2Weekly Stats Report: 10 Dec – 16 Dec 2012 Project: Scary Motherfucker URL: http://scarymotherfucker.wordpress.com/ Summary
|
The mid-season climax of AMC’s, The Walking Dead has just aired over here in the UK, and what an ending it was, leaving viewers eager for next February when the final six episodes complete the season.
AMC certainly realized the mistakes made from the previous season when the first six or so episodes became bogged down in the, “let’s find Sophia” storyline which alienated fans and found the show losing viewers. However season 2 sprung back to form after the mid season break – this time though the season hit the ground running and never let up, ending with a great climax which saw our favourite rednecks, the Dixon brothers runited.
We also lost several major characters during the first half of the season – T Dog went, as did Lori while new characters were introduced. One of the criticisms aimed at the show is that there is a lack of black characters but the mid season climax episode introduced the character of Tyrese and of course the super sexy Michone is already a firm favorite in the show.And speaking of Michone, she must represent the finest piece of casting ever, the actress really brings the comic book character to life.
“Michone is the Boba Fett of the Walking Dead universe. Danai Gurira, the actress playing the role must think I’m a weirdo – every time I see her in costume I can’s help but grin.” Robert Kirkman.
“I get excited seeing women in dire situations transform into what they have to be. It’s about time we saw more characters like Michone.’ Danai Gurira
Another huge addition to the cast this season was David Morrissey playing the Governor – a truly evil comic book creation and if his arc follows that of the comic book then he’s gonna’ end season three as a truly hated character. I must admit I was skeptical when the actor was cast in the iconic role but the actor’s made the role his own. And the mid season climax where Michone gouged one of his eyes out was excellent – the Governor had arrived.
So this all leaves us with the award winning Prison/Woodbury arc from the comic book, and it’s anyone’s guess where it goes from here -
Season three of The Walking Dead is proving to be magnificent and the latest episode was a stunning action fest with the loss of two major characters -SPOILER- Of course having read the original comic books I was expecting Lori to go but not in the way it happened here. Mind you she was one of the most annoying characters in the show and her death may give a better dynamic – Rick breaking down at the climax of the episode was a wonderfully acted moment and will likely have big ramifications for his character arc. We lost T-Dog too but I’d mostly forgotten about him as the character’s not really been used since the first season.
This episode was the first to split the storyline down the middle – half in Woodbury, and half in the prison. It is within the prison that most of the action takes place after a routine morning of dragging out bodies turns into a full scale zombie attack. Elsewhere in Woodbury we see that Andrea, Michonne and even Earl are gearing up to leave the seeming paradise of a town, and we saw hints of the Governors true nature when he refused to give Earl permission to go and look for his brother, Daryl. Michonne especially doesn’t trust the Governor and suspects he had something to do with the death of the National Guard unit in last week’s episode. Will Michonne’s arc follow the pattern set in the comics? If it does she is going to become one of the favorite characters – she’s also stunning looking, easily the hottest chick in the show and I would most certainly smash her back doors in.
I’m also pleased with the way the writers have jiggled things around from the comic books because even long time fans are not sure what is coming next.
After a poor start to the second season, the show picked up towards the latter half of the season and continued running well into season three – and the best is yet to come. The battle for the prison is just around the corner and then we’ll see just how bad the Gov can be.
Book one and two available now
Book three early 2013
In Zimbabwe two self confessed witches were ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation after they were arrested for indecent exposure – the women were found naked in a garden more than sixty miles from their homes. Both women claimed to have fallen from their flying basket. police spokesperson Inspector Clemence Mabgweazara identified the suspects as Rosemary Kamanga (48) and Esnath Maodza (56), both of Shackleton compound about 20km from Chinhoyi. Police said the informant, Eneresi Mufunga (55), of Shackleton, was awakened around 4am by strange noises that resembled fighting dogs. When she went outside to investigate, she found two naked women.
A Muslim Facebook group has warned of the dangers of eating tomatoes after a woman in Palestine had a vision of the prophet Allah – apparently the prophet was crying and warned his nation against eating tomatoes. It was claimed that if you cut a tomato in half a cross was revealed in the fruit. Along with a photo of a tomato cut in half to reveal what could be viewed as a cross, the group originally posted on Facebook: “Eating tomatoes is forbidden because they are Christian. [The tomato] praises the cross instead of Allah and says that Allah is three (a reference to the Trinity).
William LaFever, a 28 year old man, who attempted to cross the Utah desert survived for three weeks by eating raw frogs before being rescued by a police helicopter.
New figures reveal that the fastest growing hobby in the UK is ghost hunting with there being an estimated1,500 paranormal investigation groups operating in the UK. There are also many independent ghost hunters who operate alone and estimates are that these people number in their thousands.
David Icke claims that the Olympic opening ceremony in London was actually a satanic ritual on a grand scale.On his website HERE the noted nutter explains that the flame had a sinister role to play in the ritual. The former Coventry City goalkeeper and snooker host shocked Britain in 1991 when he gave a press conference announcing he was the son of God and predicting that the world would end in 1997.Now he has resurfaced to insist that the Olympics was a “mass satanic ritual disguised as a celebration of Britain and sport”.
Two young girls in China committed suicide in an attempt to travel back in time.The girls, Xiao Mei and Xiao Hua (pseudonyms), were fifth-grade classmates at a primary school in Zhangpu county, Zhangzhou. They each wrote suicide notes before their death, expressing their reasons for ending their lives, which included a wish to travel back in time. They believed that dying was the only way to achieve it.
Now feminists have attacked the bible, claiming that it is sexist and that Christianity demeans women and makes them into second class citizens.
Male fruit flies that have been rejected by females drink significantly more alcohol than those that have mated freely, scientists say.In an article in Science, researchers suggest that alcohol stimulates the flies’ brains as a “reward” in a similar way to sexual conquest.
A periodic nighttime census for rats on Alcatraz Island took an unexpected twist in February when surveyors from the National Park Service and UC Davis discovered glowing millipedes on the island. A recent February search turned up no evidence of rats. Instead, surveyors were surprised to discover millipedes glowing intensely white. To ensure that the millipedes hadn’t munched on the fluorescent rat bait, a researcher at UC Davis cast a black light over a collection case at the university’s Bohart Museum of Entomology. Preserved millipedes from the same scientific family fluoresced in the case as well.
Following their atmospheric and totally shitty version of Dracula BBC Radio 4 have just broadcast part one of a two part version of that other gothic classic, Frankenstein – you can listen to part one HERE for the next seven days.
A lush and haunting dramatisation of the story-within-a-story-within-a-story that does Mary Shelley proud. This is, unquestionably, the finest drama in the current Gothic Imagination season and breathes new life into the ultimate story of pride and obsession gone monstrously wrong.
The first of a two-part dramatisation of Mary Shelley’s gothic horror tale by Lucy Catherine about a monster created in a science experiment. Sailing through the Arctic wastes, Captain Walton picks up a man who is close to death and has a disturbing story to share. Starring Jamie Parker and Alun Raglan.
So suitable for the British horror studio was Conan Doyle’s, The Hound of the Baskervilles that it could have been written with Hammer Films in mind. Indeed following their success with revamping the Dracula and Frankenstein franchises Hammer turned to the most famous fictional detective of them all, Sherlock Holmes for this movie which was intended to be the first in a new series with Peter Cushing in the title role. Alas the movie didn’t perform as well at the box office as expected and plans for the series were scrapped while Hammer concentrated on more gothic material. Pity really – I would have loved to have seen Hammer tackle The Giant Rat of Sumatra.
The film looks like a Hammer movie – the colour is excellent, garish in places with all that over saturated red and the gothic elements that the studio did so well, are brought out in Doyle’s story like never before. Of course they were always there, even in the original story but Hammer emphasise these parts of the storyline without really altering the original. There are some differences to the original story – Stapleton’s webbed hands for one thing, the tarantula attack for another but these work well within the story and indeed the webbed hands carried by one line of the Baskerville clan is inspired and is a nice little macabre touch.
Peter Cushing here gives an excellent performance as Sherlock Holmes – the actor was a Sherlockian himself and he brings his knowledge of the character to the role. Andre Morell is a more than suitable Watson. It is also nice to see Christopher Lee playing a romantic lead role and one wonders what would have happened had he played more such roles. He is certainly convincing here. All in all this is a great Sherlock Holmes movie and under the direction of Terence Fisher the ponderous middle section so obvious in most productions of this story moves along at a great pace.
Why wasn’t it a big box office hit then? Well the blame for this lies with Hammer themselves. They promoted the movie as a big horror flick in the style of their successful Dracula and Frankenstein movies, with hardly any mention that this was in fact a Sherlock Holmes movie. The advertising posters suggested a kind of werewolf but when we see the hound on screen it is nothing more than an over sized Great Dane. Movie fans back in the day may have been disappointed – after all, they were going to see a film starring Hammer’s two biggest horror icons with a large slavering hound in the advertising posters and what they got Sherlock Holmes adventure. A damn thrilling one nonetheless but word of mouth could have harmed the movie after its strong opening weekend. SEE THE ORIGINAL CINEMA TRAILER EMBEDDED BELOW TO SEE HOW THE FILM WAS MARKETED.
Still the movie’s stood the test of time and this is a great version of the much filmed story – it’s also nice to see the current DVD version showing such an impressive looking cut of the movie. The colours are vibrant and the sound booming. It is only a pity that it is a full frame 4.3 version on the UK release when I believe the American market get a true widescreen version.
Peter Cushing would of course go onto play Holmes for the BBC, but his performance as the detective here is perhaps his definitive stab at the part. Christopher Lee also got a stab at playing both Watson and Holmes in future Holmes movies but the less said about them the better.
